Secret
by Genevieve Darcy Granger
Summary: Carl sneaks in one night and secrets are revealed.


Squinting in the dark, Carl held his breath as his housekey slipped over the lock twice before he finally managed to unlock the front door. The clock on the dashboard of Ron's car ran an hour fast since he'd yet to flip it back for Daylight Saving's Time. That meant that it was roughly half past four in the morning – at least, according to Carl's estimate. The joint Enid had shared with him made his head fuzzy, and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and his tongue was thick, hairy, and leadened like a sock or a dead hamster. Carl had never smoked before – not even once with any cigarettes, and though he was tempted to try it, he had yet to find anyone who vaped and was willing to let him have a go at that either. His dad had warned him before about weed, but when he saw Enid wrap her lips around it, Carl didn't hesitate to accept the joint when she passed it to him first over Ron and Lydia. That had to mean something, right?

Stumbling inside the dark house, Carl tried to keep quiet. The latest he had ever stayed out before was 12:30, but that was with his dad for the midnight premiere of _The Force Awakens_. Without his dad, Carl has always been home before midnight, according to his 10:00 curfew.

This was also the first time Carl has ever snuck out. Sneaking out tonight hadn't even been that hard, but sneaking back in when he was high had to be the hardest thing he has ever attempted.

It was hard to see with the house saturated in the pitch dark like this, so Carl was forced to navigate through the living room by touch as his fingertips glided along the walls. He felt he was six-years-old again, scribbling blue snakes on the wall after he just watched _The Jungle Book_. The memory made him giggle, and as he pulled his hand away from the wall to muffle the sound, he listed too far away, stumbling into the end table next to the couch. To catch himself from tripping and falling, Carl caught himself on the end table, all knocking elbows that sent the lamp to the hardwood floor with a loud clatter and the shatter of the LED lightbulb. "Shit." Carl's feet walked forward on their own, sneakers crunching glass underfoot, slicing the rubber soles. "Ffffuuuck."

The ground looked so far away, and his outstretched hands felt foreign as he reached downward, grasping at nothing but air. The toe of his sneaker, smudged with dirt and stained green from grass, nudged against the fallen lamp as if checking it was still alive.

Suddenly, there was thunder, and for a moment, Carl was confused because he was just outside and he didn't remember any heaviness of humidity. Actually, they were in a drought, the red Georgia clay cracking and flaking like the tops of brownies – oh, those sounded so good right now.

But as the thundering got louder, Carl recognized it as his dad's flat feet on the staircase. What was Dad doing up so late? So early? Wait – his dad?!

"I'm a cop!" His dad's voice shook off the thick texture that comes with sleep, all authoritative bite to his bark. "I've got a gun!"

"Dad."

There was a pause, and then softer, "Carl?" Rick flicked the light switch, and Carl blinked and hissed against the overhead light as his eyes adjusted. He wasn't sure if it was the weed or not, but his dad was wearing a fluffy pink robe that Carl recognized as the one that had belonged to Mom. Rick drew the tie tight around his waist until he was swathed from ankle to chin in pink.

Relief passed over Rick's face once he realized that it was only his son. "Carl, you scared me," Rick sighed, and then he stopped. With narrowed eyes, he tilted his head at Carl and just stared. The longer he stared the more Carl felt like he was doing something wrong. Familiar dad-like sternness flooded his features with drawn together and mouth drawn down in a frown. His arms crossed over his chest. Then Rick growled, "Carl Jeffrey Grimes," – _Uh oh_ – "are you high right now?"

"Um." Carl tried to blink, but he had to remember how to do it so it was very slow and deliberate. First one eye and then the other. "Um." Honesty was the best policy, right? "Yes."

"Are you serious?" Rick hissed. "Do you have any idea what time it is right now?! It's," he lifted his wrist, but then rolled his eyes to the ceiling in frustration once he realized that, of course, he wasn't wearing his watch. "It's late." He started shooting off questions, rapid-fire. "Where have you been? When did you sneak out? Who were you with? Which one of your little friends gave you weed? Was it Ron Anderson? Or was it Lydia? I knew she was a bad influence."

As Carl's head swirled with the tornados of question from his dad's Spanish Inquisition, he again heard the sound of thunder. Seemingly in slow-motion, he watched the color drain from his father's face until it as ghostly white, stark in contrast against the pink robe. Gone was the fire in his dad's crisp eyes. Instead, they are tinged with fear. And then what happened next, Carl was sure was conjured up by his weed baked brain.

"You picked the wrong house, motherfucker!" His gym teacher Negan screamed as his war cry as he charges down the staircase, wrench raised overhead. When he saw that there was no intruder, Negan paused next to Rick and let the wrench fall against his shoulder. His black hair was messy, and he had a five o'clock shadow, and he looked absolutely scared shitless.

Carl had two thoughts in that moment. For one, he remembered that wrench as theirs because his dad was currently working on the master bathroom where one of the double sinks had a clog. For another, he knew that had to be his gym teacher – even though he had no idea what his gym teacher looked like in red boxers – because the way he was holding the wrench as exactly how he held the baseball bat when he was demonstrating the proper form for a swing.

In shock, Carl watched as his dad grabbed fistfuls of the robe around his neck and squeezed it around his body tighter, eyes bouncing back and forth between Carl and Negan nervously. Once Carl noticed that his dad could obviously see Negan as well, Carl realized that his gym teacher was in fact not a hallucination from a bad batch of LSD laced weed. Negan was actually standing in his living in his red boxers – his red silk boxers – next to Rick. "Dad, shoot him."

"Carl!"

"Dad, shoot him! That's my gym teacher and he broke into our fucking house!" Carl screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Negan.

"Jesus fucking Christ, kid, give me a fucking break," Negan mumbled under his breath, barely audible enough for Carl to hear.

"Stop it," Rick's voice cut over both of theirs, "I will not have cursin' in my house."

Red hot anger boiled in Carl's blood, something that had been lingering there and mitigated by the weed and blowing off steam with his friends and hanging out with Enid. But sobriety was rapidly flooding back, and a white noise deafened Carl's ears to whatever his dad was saying. Gritting his teeth, he glared at his stupid gym teacher – and then lunged. "I fucking hate you!"

"Carl, no!" Rick pushed Negan back with one hand as he stepped in front of him and caught his son in his arms. Carl, even though he was still a little shorter and not as broad as his father, gave quite the fight as he struggled against his hold to get to Negan. "Stop it!" Rick was surprised when Carl twisted in his grasp, burying his face against the pink robe as he started to cry.

Carl was not as sober as he thought he was. He remembered crying into this robe when Mom told him that Grandpa had passed away; he had been seven. He remembered crying into this robe late at night with Mom when they wondered if Dad was ever going to wake up from his coma; he had been ten. He remembered crying into this robe when he told Mom about how Sophia didn't like him back; he had been twelve. He remembered both him and his dad crying into this robe when they got the news that Lori had passed away in a car accident; he had been fourteen. And now he was crying into this robe because he didn't get accepted into the varsity or junior varsity baseball team – and he was sixteen.

"Dad," he sniffled miserably and lifted his face to explain when he saw that the robe had peeled away from Rick's neck, showing a generous littering of hickeys. Through the haze of sadness and confusion, anger lanced through him again and he jerked out of Rick's arms. "You fucked my dad!" Barely able to contain his fury as balled up fists at his side, Carl shouted at Negan, "You didn't put me on the team and you fucked my dad! Fuck you! You're an asshole!"

Before either Rick or Negan could react, from upstairs there came a wail. "Daddy!" At the top of the staircase, Judith clutched her stuffed lion, what threads of hair left in his balding mane caught between her chubby toddler fingers. In her purple Barbie nightgown and with her blonde curls tangled, Judith's eyes were wide and her lower lip wobbled dangerously. "Daddy? Carl?"

"Judith," Rick sighed, brushing past them to climb the stairs up to Judith. "Go back to bed, baby. Here I'll tuck you in." Once he reached the top, he scooped her up in his arms and she laid her head down on his shoulder immediately, her thick tangle of hair hiding all evidence of his hickeys. Looking down at them, Rick added sternly, "In fact, we should all be goin' to bed." With a swirl of pink, Rick disappeared from sight, his soft murmurs quieting until they were finally silenced behind Judith's bedroom door.

Both Negan and Carl had an awkward moment where they were left downstairs in the living room, staring at each other. "Just go up to bed, kid. I'll clean this up."

Oh. The lamp. He'd forgotten. Carl looked down in a daze at where the glass pieces of the lightbulb glittered against the dark wood grain of the floor. It swam before his eyes and then he noticed that Negan was barefoot. Briefly, he felt a moment of sympathy, and then he pushed that back. "The broom is in the pantry," Carl spat, "Do you know where that is?"

"No, this is my first time at your house." Negan was still calm, "But I bet your pantry is in your kitchen?"

After a moment, he answered tersely, "Yeah." Carl kept glaring.

With a small sigh, Negan carefully sidestepped past Carl for the kitchen. "See you in the morning, kid."

Tossing a sneer in reply, Carl stomped up the stairs to his room. After aggressively kicking off his sneakers into his closet and angrily yanking off his clothes that still stank of weed, Carl climbed into bed with the single-minded determinedness to text Enid about the bullshit that is his life right now. As soon as his head touched the pillow, though, Carl passed out before he even had time to plug in his phone.

* * *

It was around eleven in the morning when Carl finally woke up with a pounding headache. Considering that he didn't even go to bed until five that morning, it made sense why. The smell of brunch lured him downstairs though – frying bacon – and he managed to drag himself away from his bed. It was until he was at the bottom of the stairs that he slowly remembered the events that transpired the night before. There was a noticeable mark on the hardwood floors that wasn't there before, and the lamp on the end table was conspicuously missing a lightbulb.

Glancing up from the floor, Carl saw that the TV was paused on one of Judith's princess movies – _Tangled_. Heading to the kitchen, Carl poured himself a glass of orange juice and sat at the table before he looked up and realized that everything that happened last night was real. Coach Negan was sitting at the table casually, in a white t-shirt and grey jeans, and he had a BLT in his hands and mustard on the corner of his mouth. "Hi."

"What the fuck are you–"

"Carl! Your sister is right here!" Across the table, his dad was dressed casually, too, in grey sweatpants stained from Judith probably and a white t-shirt. On a closer inspection, Carl noticed that the t-shirt on Negan looked exactly the same and he felt himself go green.

The only one acting normal was Judith, and she was perched in her booster seat eating dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets and mac-n-cheese. "Hi, Carl," she chirped as she vigorously drowned the T-Rex is ketchup and then dragged the red streak over to the pink-tinged ranch.

"Hey, Judy," Carl mumbled, still staring at his dad.

"So." Rick didn't break eye-contact either. "Where did you go last night?"

Carl's eyes flickered over to Negan briefly. "Can we not do this in front of him?"

As if waiting for Carl to make that comment, Rick dropped his face into his palms and took a deep breath before he finally looked back up again. "Fine. What do you want to know about Negan? Then we're goin' to talk about last night."

"Dad, I don't care if you're dating someone! I swear! I thought you'd be dating our neighbor Michonne! But why are you dating him?"

"I'm right here, y'know," Negan mumbled into his mug of coffee, but both Grimes men ignored him.

"Is it…" Rick choked, "Is it because he – he?"

Carl's eyes widened and he quickly backtracked, "No! No, Dad, I know that's – that's cool, now. I don't care about that – and I know that you loved Mom. You still love Mom. That's…that's not the problem." Allowing some of his hair to fall in front of his eyes, Carl bowed his head slightly in shame. "I'm sorry if you thought you couldn't tell me that. Not that you had to, or anything. Like. Y'know what I'm trying to say."

"Thank you, Carl," Rick murmured softly. Negan reached over and placed his hand over Rick's. Clearing his throat, Rick started again. "If that's not what's wrong, then what's the problem?"

"He's Negan," Carl spat as if that made total sense on his own. At Rick's slight shake of his head and the blank look in his eyes, Carl huffed and crossed his arms across his chest, sagging in his seat. "I didn't get on the baseball team. Either one. I didn't make the cut, but Ron did. Dwayne did, too. Even Patrick did."

"Hey, Patrick is a good kid," Negan broke in, "You guys give him a hard time for no reason. He's good in the outfield."

"I wanted to be in the outfield! I thought you liked me, Coach! I'm good in gym – and you're the one who encouraged me to try out! But then you didn't put me on the team and it's because you're fu–" Carl glanced at Judith, who was painting her plate using the yellow cheese, the ketchup, and the ranch as paint and her dinosaurs are brushes, "sleeping with my dad."

"Carl," Rick interrupted, his tone stressing urgency, "we're not – it's not. Negan didn't come over last night for that."

Making a face of disbelief, Carl muttered, "Yeah, if I came home with hickeys, you wouldn't think I got them so innocently."

"What your dad means is that I came over last night because I was drunk and I told the Uber that this was my address." Carl had never heard Negan be so serious before. "Your dad and I, we're friends. We've been texting and hanging out since we met at the PTA meeting your freshmen year."

"Why? What could you two have in common? Ruining my life?"

"No," Rick immediately answered while Negan simultaneously said, "Yes." Shooting Negan a look of disapproval, Rick continued, "No, it's just…he…" He looked at Negan helplessly, and Negan gave him a singular nod. It seemed to be permission, because then Rick spoke freely, "He's a widower, too. And he helped me through that. Made sure I didn't drink through my liver. He's been a big help, and he's been a friend who's understood me like no one else did. He didn't pity me."

As he processed the information, Carl blinked, looking between his dad and his gym coach. He couldn't see anyone else more dissimilar from each other, and yet they were friends. Narrowing his eyes at his dad's exposed neck, Carl huffed again. More than friends, apparently. "Why didn't you tell me you guys were friends before this?"

"I…I didn't want to embarrass you." Rick dropped his eyes.

"Yeah, I didn't care about that." Negan's response is less sincere and more sarcastic in a familiar, grounding way. "I just didn't want you thinking you were gonna get special treatment from me just because I'm friends with your dad." He took another bite of his sandwich as if this was the most casual conversation in the world to be having.

"So, you didn't put me on the team because you wanted to be unbiased?"

"Kid," Negan mumbled around his mouthful, "I didn't put you on the team because of you, not because of your daddy."

Exchanging a wild look with Rick, Carl asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Sighing, Negan took his empty plate to the kitchen sink. He dropped it in the soapy water – and when he turned around, he threw an orange at Carl that just bounced off his chest and rolled across the table to Rick. "That's why."

Flustered, Carl argued, "Okay, I didn't catch it, but I wasn't ready for it!"

Leaning his hip against the countertop, Negan crossed his arms. "Okay. Rick, toss that orange at your boy."

After a moment's hesitation where he made sure Carl was ready, Rick gently tossed the orange to Carl – and Carl didn't catch it.

"Kid," Negan grimaced and then amended, "Carl. I can't let you on the team because you don't have any kind of depth perception. You need to see an eye-doctor." He pushed himself off the countertop and went to fetch the orange from where it had rolled into the living room.

"I've been noticin' it, too," Rick said, addressing Carl. "Have you noticed? I can't imagine you goin' this long in the semester squintin' at the board."

Muttering mostly to himself, Carl answered in a surly tone, "Mom didn't need glasses. You don't need glasses. I shouldn't need them. They're for nerds."

"Please, Carl. I'm sure if you get glasses you can get on the baseball team," Rick soothed.

"Yeah, he's right. I'll give you another chance, then." Negan joined in, wandering back into view with the orange. "Also, glasses don't make you a nerd. I wear glasses."

"You do not."

"Do, too. I just…prefer contacts. Need my glasses and contacts to read, though. I'm far-sighted." He started to meticulously peel the orange, standing by the garbage to do so.

"Dare you to wear your glasses to class on Monday."

"Deal." Negan agreed.

"So, if you get glasses," Rick pointedly added, "maybe your Algebra II grade will go up, too?"

"Maybe."

"Then I'm makin' you an eye-doctor appointment." Having marked that off the list, Rick sighed. "Any other questions for me?"

Staring hard at his dad across the table, Carl wasn't sure if he should ask. Then as Negan offered a slice of the orange to Rick, Carl knew that he had to ask. "Are you guys still just friends?"

Carl had never seen his dad blush before, but now that he has, he can't say that he ever wants to again. "I…yes. As of last night, yes. We're datin'."

Saving Rick from any further embarrassment, Negan, who had no shame, sarcastically inquired, "You really want the hot, juicy gossip on your daddy's love life, kid, or you gonna at least let him have this?"

Glad he had yet to eat anything yet, Carl shook his head. "Yeah, okay. That's fine. But if you're an ass to him, all bets are off."

"I figured."

"Good." Thankfully, Rick had stopped blushing, and he was somber and serious once more. "Now, Carl. I want you to tell me. Where did you go last night?"

Again, Carl looked to Negan. This time, though, he held Negan's smarmy gaze as he answered his dad. "We went to Negan's house and we egged it and rolled it because he didn't put me on the team."

The smug look on Negan's face dropped away, replaced with a thunderstorm on his brow. "You little," he made a noise of frustration as he looked to Judith and then back, "I thought we were friends, jerk!"

"Wait a minute," Rick said, calm in a way that spoke of his career, definitely like the calm before the storm. "You said 'we' so who else was there?"

Feeling a little guilty, Carl still answered honestly all the same, "Ron, Lydia, and Enid. Ron's the only one with a car. It was Lydia's idea, though."

From the way his dad pressed his lips together, Carl could tell he was holding back about another comment on both Ron and Lydia. Rick disliked Ron mainly because he thought he took after his asshole father, whom Rick had arrested for domestic violence. Rick disliked Lydia for similar reasons about her mother, and also because Lydia had a juvie record like no other. Though he was a little annoyed at Carl's friend group, at the end of the day, Rick thought that maybe Carl would be a good influence for them. Instead, it was just the other way around. "Was the weed from Ron or Lydia? I'm guessin' Lydia, but we didn't pull her in for that before."

"No, Rick," Negan slyly drawled, an oily look of revenge in his toothy smile, not at all friendly. "The weed came from Carl's little girlfriend Enid. I've caught her smoking it in the girl's dressing room once."

"What were you doing in there?!" Carl jumped down Negan's throat before Rick could.

"Hey, don't get," another glance towards Judith, "miffed with me! Your girl got off easy with an afterschool detention. And I went in there because I smelled weed."

Heading off another argument between the two, Rick stood up from the table. "I'm calling all of your friends' parents about this little incident, too."

"What else are you gonna do?" Carl talked back, "Have Negan give me detention and suspend me? Or are you gonna shoot me?"

Frowning, Rick said, "You're lucky I'm not takin' you to station over this. But that doesn't mean you won't be grounded and have to do a little community service, too."

"Grounded?" Carl whined, trying in vain to ignore Negan's snickers in the background, "And what do you mean by community service?"

"Grounded as in no phone, no Xbox, no skateboard, no guitar, and no hangin' out with any of your friends for at least a month." Rick scooped up Judith from her chair, her plate not necessarily clean, but definitely void of any macaroni noodles and chicken nuggets. "And your community service is simple. We're goin' to Negan's house, and you're gonna clean all that up."

Carl's jaw dropped and then he pushed out of his chair, stomping up to his room. "This family sucks!" He shouted back and then slammed his bedroom door.

Sighing, Rick drifted towards the kitchen sink so he could use a damp paper towel to clean Judith's face. He hitched her up higher on his hip, struggling to tear off a sheet one-handed when Negan came to his aid…as he always does. "Don't take it so hard, Rick. It was like tearing off a bandage. Better for it to be done all at once, right?"

"I suppose so," Rick said dully, accepting the damp paper towel and passing it to Judith so she could wipe first and then taking it back to get the finer spots and details that she missed, like in her eyebrow. How she got ketchup in her eyebrow, Rick didn't know. "At least…at least it's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be."

"Yeah," Negan chuckled, "Could've been a heck of a lot worse." He pressed a kiss to Rick's temple, and then followed that up with a kiss to the top of Judith's head. "But hey, Rick, you know what?" Negan covered Judith's ears with his big hands. "I think I saw a rose spring outta that pile of shit."

"Really?" Rick mused in disbelief, "How's that?"

With a bright smile that had the tip of his tongue playfully pinched between his teeth, Negan practically sang, "He called us a family."

And that was enough to make Rick smile, too.


End file.
